What’s in the Marciano Collection—and When Will We Know?

William Poundstone has some interesting speculation about the Marciano Art Foundation which is set to be opened in the Spring of 2017. Given the Marciano brothers previous statements that Los Angeles doesn’t need another museum in the Hammer, MoCA or Broad mold, it remains to be see what the 1500 works assembled in the last seven years contains. But Poundstone has some educated guesses:

It sounds like the Marciano collection is much more focused on the past decade. That’s intriguing and could stake a claim as a museum of the right now. Is the collection any good? I’ve not seen it. For what it’s worth, Alex Israel figures in the founding story. He alerted the Marcianos to the Masonic building being on the market. Israel is one of the artists collected in depth, and he is creating a mural for the Foundation’s interior.

Recent articles report that the Foundation has 17 Albert Oehlens; it collects Carrol Dunham, Kaari Upon, Doug Aitken, Rudolf Stingel, Wade Guyon, Sterling Ruby, and Thomas Houseago. There will be a Houseago in a sculpture garden. It was/is kvetched that the Broad is a random core sample of art-fair sensibility, with no inner conviction. I’ll make this one prediction sight-unseen: Expect to hear the same about the Marciano.